Nicknames

Now I don't know about the rest of you, but I've recently realized that in my lifetime, I've had quite a few nicknames. It's kind of interesting really, because with the return home for the holidays it will be the one time in the year where someone will actually call me Christopher, and to be honest, it's kind of strange.

You see the name I use on here is in fact most of my real name, I have left out my surname, but "Christopher Robin" is in fact my proper first and middle name. But for the majority of my life I have gone by the name "Chris". I mean why not, it's the natural shortening of my name, it's not particularly dorky, and has nowhere near the cry for attention level that "Topher" has, the new in way to shorten "Christopher".

I think my first nickname had to come from my father, he's the only one to ever call me CR. The only other quasi-nickname along those lines would be from the ballroom dance group in Edmonton. You see there were far too many people going by Chris within that circle, so to them I have become known as "Christopher Robin". And yes, it's cute now...high school, not so cute...there's a reason I kept that name to myself until I was in university.

The nicknames I had in high school were "String Bean", given to me by a shorter bulkier friend. And "Smart Guy", with it's lovely derogatory connotation from the meatheads at the back of the bus...and no, I will never refer to high school as the best years of my life, I mean really, even if I wasn't picked on, if you peak before you're 18 you may as well kill yourself by 20.

In my undergrad I didn't pick-up many nicknames, though I did pick up a reputation for being quite the drunk. So maybe there were some nicknames I wasn't aware of, to be honest, I don't really want to know. The one I do recall though was from a friend in CEGEP, he called me "Big C" for a while, unfortunately I was far too lame/clueless to give him the very obvious "Little G" nickname, so that died off pretty quickly.

Grad school however seems to be where my nicknames began to blossom. Doing a rough count now I think I averaged on a year, and I'm leaving out at least one that never really caught on. One of the first one's was courtesy of Aaron, he nicknamed both Colin and I "The Glimmer Twins" after a night out with us, which included a watermelon, a frat house and a flying tackle of a pick-up truck...it was a fun night. But of course "Glimmer Twin" just doesn't cut it as a nickname, so Bryan was kind enough to designate us as "Alpha" and "Beta". I got "Alpha" for coincidentally wearing a shirt that matched the bike I bought the day it came in.

I think it's been through biking that I have acquired the most nicknames. In Edmonton the guys at Redbike started calling me "Il Presidente" once I was in charge of the bike club. Around the same time I was also given the nickname "Ladies Man" by some of my fellow club members. And yes, I did date a bit that summer, but you must also keep in mind that most of the club members were married, engaged, or in long-term relationships, so anyone with an active dating life could have picked up that title. And though I have only been with the club here in Minneapolis I already have a number of nicknames (I'm just glad I didn't fill out that part of the new member survey, otherwise there would be way too many to deal with). So far I have been designated "CC" which, in most cases, stands for "Canadian Chris", but can also be "Cyclocross Chris", though the latter is less frequent. However cyclocross has brought out a couple of other nicknames for me as well. The rather odd one of "Bruiser" is beginning to take hold. This was due to the bruises suffered by a club member who attended a cyclocross clinic I held. And no, I didn't hit her for not doing things right. The other nickname is "Gazelle", (do I in any way look like a Gazelle? well other than being skinny) and I have recently learned, this has also been used to describe me in softball. Apparently, my running style is either very graceful, or it looks like I'm running for dear life with a cheetah on my ass?

Oh, and last but not least, my research group has given me a couple of informal nicknames already. I have been referred to on several occasions as "The Canadian" even though our research supervisor is Canadian as well. And as "Post doc" which at least is accurate, though rather generic, as it was also used for the last post doc, so it doesn't really give me that same warm and fuzzy feeling as "Ladies Man" (with that sleazy tone of voice) would give me.